Innoxious while the loudest tempest blows
O'er trees, that boast a less-aspiring height.
As the wild fury of the whirlwind pours,
With direst ruin fall the loftiest towers;

And 'tis the mountain's summit that, oblique,

From the dense, lurid clouds, the baleful lightnings strike.

A mind well disciplin'd, when sorrow lours,
Not sullenly excludes Hope's smiling rays;
Nor, when soft Pleasure boasts of lasting powers,
With boundless trust the promiser surveys.

It is the same dread Jove, who thro' the sky
Hurls the loud storms, that darken as they fly;
And whose benignant hand withdraws the gloom,
And spreads rekindling light in all its living bloom.

To-day the soul perceives a weight of woe ;-
A brighter morrow shall gay thoughts inspire.
Does Phoebus always bend the vengeful bow?
Wakes he not often the harmonious lyre?

1. 18.-Epidemic diseases were, by the Pagans, believed to be the effect of having offended Apollo. The arrows he shoots among the Greeks in the first Book of the Iliad, produce the pestilence, which follows the rape of his Priest's daughter, Chryseis. When we consider the dependence of the human constitution upon the temperate, or intemperate influence of the sun, the avenging bow of Phœbus appears an obvious alle

Be thou, when danger scowls in every wave,
Watchful, collected, spirited, and brave;
But in the sunny sky, the flattering gales,
Contract, with steady hand, thy too expanded sails.

gory; and since it is in the hours of health that the fine arts are sought and cultivated, the sun, under the name of Phœbus, Apollo, &c. is with equal propriety of fable, supposed their patron, as well as the avenger of crimes by the infliction of diseases.

ΤΟ

MECENAS.*

BOOK THE SECOND, ODE THE TWelfth.

MECENAS, I conjure thee cease

To wake my harp's enamour'd strings To tones, that fright recumbent Peace, That Pleasure flies on rapid wings!

* Of that artful caution, which marks the character of Horace, this Ode forms a striking instance. He declines the task appointed by his patron, that of describing the Italian wars, because he foresees that in its execution he must either disoblige the Emperor and his Minister, by speaking too favoura bly of their enemies, or offend some friends, whom he yet retained amongst those, who had exerted themselves against the Cæsars. Horace endeavours to soften the effect of this noncompliance by a warm panegyric upon Licinia, the betrothed bride of Mæcenas. She is in other places called Terentia. Both these names have affinity to those of her brothers, Licinius, afterwards Augur, and her adopted brother, Terentius.

Horace mentions plainly the Numantian wars, and those with Hannibal, but artfully speaks of those of Brutus, and Cas

5

Slow conquest on Numantia's plain,
Or Hannibal, that dauntless stood,
Tho' thrice he saw Ausonia's main
Redden with Carthaginian blood;

The Lapitha's remorseless pride,
Hylæus' wild inebriate hours;

The Giants, who the Gods defied,

And shook old Saturn's splendid towers;

sius, and of the character of Antony, under fabulous denominations, sufficiently understood by Augustus, and his Minister. Dacier justly observes how easy it is to discern, that by the Lapithæ, and Giants, defeated by Hercules on the plains of Thessaly, the poet means the armies of Brutus, and Cassius, defeated by Augustus, almost in the same place, at the battle of Philippi. He concludes also that by Hylæus is meant Mark Antony, who assumed the name of Bacchus, and ruined himself by his profligate passion for Cleopatra. Another commentator observes, that as the Giants, and Lapithæ, are said to have made the palace of Saturn shake, so also did Brutus, and Cassius, and afterwards Mark Antony, make all Italy tremble, and that it is Rome itself that Horace would have to be understood by the magnificent Palace of Saturn. Some critics seek to destroy all the common sense, beauty, and character of this Ode, by denying the allegoric interpretation; and also by insisting that Licinia was the poet's own mistress, and not the mistress of his patron. It had been absurd, and inconceivably unmeaning, if, when he was requested to sing the triumphs of Augustus in the Italian wars, he should, during the brief mention of them, have adverted to old fables, uniting them, not as a simile, but in a line of continuation with the Numantian, and

These, dear MÆCENAS, thou should'st paint,
Each glory of thy CÆSAR'S reign,
In eloquence, that scorns restraint,
And sweeter than the poet's strain;

Show captive kings, who from the fight
Drag at his wheels their galling chain,
And the pale lip indignant bite

With mutter'd vengeance, wild and vain.

Enraptur'd by LICINIA's grace,

My Muse would these high themes decline,
Charm'd that the heart, the form, the face
Of matchless excellence is thine.

Carthaginian wars; unless, beneath those fables, he shadowed forth the Roman enemies of Augustus.

The idea that Licinia was the mistress of Horace, has surely little foundation:-for it were strange indeed if he could take pleasure in describing amorous familiarities between Mæcenas, and the person with whom himself was in love. One of these critics alleges, as the reason why this lady could not be the destined bride of Mæcenas, that it would have been as indiscreet in him to have admitted Horace to be a witness of his passion for Licinia-Terentia, as it would have been impertinent in the poet, to have invaded the privacies of his patron. It is not necessary, from this Ode, to conclude that Horace had witnessed the tender scene he describes. He might, without any hazard of imputed impertinence, venture to paint, from his imagination, the innocently playful endearments of betrothed lovers. The picture was much more likely to flatter than to disgust the gay, and gallant Mæcenas.